Unpublished letter submitted to the Toronto Star
Re: Is arming S. Korea the best way to contain Kim? October 2, 2017.
Thomas Walkom’s column lamenting the paucity of ideas around the globe related to the nuclear sabre rattling of North Korea and the U.S. adds little air to the vacuum. The real problem is how males handle conflict of all kinds employing the tunnel vision of confrontational adversarialism as their primary problem solving approach. Without this they seem lost for ideas. History is littered with examples of their misguided bloody, destructive and often lengthy misadventures that regularly decimated nations and civilizations around the world. Despite this we continue to draw our water from the same well.
Our modern dilemma resulting from this mindset is that the geopolitics that led to the First and Second World Wars never ended. Since the cessation of hostilities countries around the world have existed in a constant and growing state of war readiness and tension fuelled by various proxy wars and belief systems generating a global paranoia willingly encouraged by a now gargantuan military industrial complex that has made conflict a highly profitable business and a sizable part of global economies. The opiod addiction crisis pales in comparison to the military one. Despite this the world seems almost blasé and diffident about the immediate and real threat of nuclear war, demonstrating little urgency in their quest for a solution to this most recent looming disaster.The only real answer to conflict everywhere and for all time is one that is rarely pursued with any vigour by contemporary leaders is to employ comprehensive non-confrontational approaches and decisions of rational dialogue and consensus focussed on the full nuclear disarmament of all nations, the immediate destruction of weapons of all kinds, the use of stringent and not selective arms embargos and controls and taking immediate steps to dismantle the arms industry around the world. This strong passive leadership would be real leadership that the world desperately needs. We must beat our weapons into ploughshares and begin to demand leaders who will do this while sharing the peace dividend that ensues with the people of the world. Only these dramatic and pressing measures will avoid nuclear Armageddon and turn back the doomsday clock which is about to strike twelve.